Cast Party: Who Should Star in a ‘Dinosaur Comics’ Movie?

Welcome to Cast Party, the feature that imagines a world with even more live action comics adaptations than we currently have, and comes up with arguably the best casting suggestions you’re ever going to find for the movies and shows we wish could exist. This week we're looking at a webcomic for the first time, and in fact it's one of the most respected and long running comics on the web, Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics.

Now you my be wondering how it would be possible to make an entertaining movie out of a web comic in which each installment has the exact same artwork with only the dialogue changed. Honestly, I wonder that too. That's why I would hire Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to write and direct this movie. As the team behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, and The Lego Movie, they have a proven track record of making very funny films out of material that ought to be disastrous. So let's get them talking to Mr. North, and see what they can figure out.

Aziz Ansari as T-Rex

Ryan North/Netflix

Ansari is a star on the rise. As we saw with his breakthrough role as Tom Haverford on Parks & Recreation, he excels at pomposity and verbose ridiculousness. Precisely what the role of T-Rex requires. However, as he recently proved with his Netflix series Master of None, he can also be a leading man, which is obviously a requirement as well, since T-Rex is unquestionably the leading man of Dinosaur Comics. He might even get a sincerely emotional moment or two, in between the long absurd speeches.

Billy Eichner as Utahraptor

Ryan North/Hulu

Utahraptor shows up halfway through every comic to object to what T-Rex is saying, to add an alternate perspective, or just to make him lose his train of thought. Eichner is perfect for this sort thing. He made a name for himself by getting overexcited and yelling at people in a succession of television shows. Now, I'm not sure how this movie will be structured. Will Eichner as Utahraptor show up halfway through the run time, interrupting Ansair's T-Rex and then bantering until the credits roll? Or will he interrupt T-Rex repeatedly, with different objections, in a series of shorter vignettes? Either way, I'm confident Eichner is up to the task.

Meryl Streep as Dromiceiomimus

Ryan North/Universal

There's not much Meryl Streep hasn't done. She's portrayed Julia Child and Margaret Thatcher. She's played a literal fox, an actual witch, and a male rabbi. But has she ever played an obscure prehistoric sauropod with a nigh-unpronounceable name? I'm almost certain she hasn't. This is her chance to get that out of the way, and elevate this movie in the process. Heck, she'll probably get nominated for an Oscar.

Alicia Fox as the tiny woman

Ryan North/WWE

This is a very physical part, and as a wrestler, Fox can handle that sort of thing. And specifically, as a woman who's wrestled for WWE for nearly a decade, she's got more than enough experience being figuratively and literally stepped on.

Ryan North as the driver of the car

Ryan North/TEDx

Is there anyone in the car? I've never been sure if there's anyone in the car. But if there is anyone in that car, it's the perfect spot for a creator cameo. Put Ryan North in the car, and let him mug Stan Lee-style while T-Rex squashes all his stuff. He's a genius, and he deserves it.